Madden 16 - Player Development (unrealistically hard this year?)

[kwpit79]

Maybe the Madden devs wanted it this way, but the way XP is handed out through stat rewards and gameplanning, it seems like it would take forever to develop players compared to Madden 25 or 15.

Now I didn't like that you could take any ole' scrub in Madden 15 and turn them into a stud by year three - that always felt unrealistic. But the XP pendulum seems to have swung to the other extreme end this year. Just one example, I spend all of my gameplanning sessions focused on my first round WR (76 OVR); by his second season, with a decent statistical season, he was a 79 OVR. In the real NFL, most players who end up being good make a giant leap in year 2.

Anyone else noticing this? If there is a similar thread about this already, I apologize.

[Sphinx]

I saw this same thing during my couple test sims. I actually kind of like it, the previous years it was WAY to easy to build an all pro team by year three. Now at least you have to build up players more.

[DerkontheOS]

This could be a good thing...

[niles08]

I to hated the way we could turn anybody last season into a stud. However, I am curious as to what your WR's development rating is? That may play a bit of a role into this. If he's a slow learner, he honestly shouldn't be a star right away. With the rating you mentioned he would be a 79 at age 23, 82 at age 24, and 85 at age 25 which is realistic in my book. I don't however like the fact that you said you had to spend all of your game planning sessions based on him so I am not just siding with EA on this. Also, did you hit his season goals? How did those look for XP? I would be against somebody being a 76 overall and a 94 after 2 seasons.

I believe we have found some middle ground. At this rate after 3 seasons he would be an 85 which is improved, but not a stud which is what you said you wanted.

[Sphinx]

Game prep this year did seemed nerfed quite a bit. You weren't going to get nearly as much XP as you would get in previous years. So it takes quite some time to get players better without hitting weekly and yearly goals.

[kwpit79]

Quote: Originally Posted by niles08

I to hated the way we could turn anybody last season into a stud. However, I am curious as to what your WR's development rating is? That may play a bit of a role into this. If he's a slow learner, he honestly shouldn't be a star right away. With the rating you mentioned he would be a 79 at age 23, 82 at age 24, and 85 at age 25 which is realistic in my book. I don't however like the fact that you said you had to spend all of your game planning sessions based on him so I am not just siding with EA on this. Also, did you hit his season goals? How did those look for XP? I would be against somebody being a 76 overall and a 94 after 2 seasons. I believe we have found some middle ground. At this rate after 3 seasons he would be an 85 which is improved, but not a stud which is what you said you wanted.

His development was average, so that may be it. To be honest, I was simming one game, doing the gameplanning, simming the next game, etc, so I don't know if he hit his top goal, statistics-wise. I believe he caught 74 passes.

And I agree with you all about having realistic long-term development. But there are hundreds of examples of players being mediocre their first year (say a 76 OVR) and superstars their second year (say 88-92 OVR). So in those cases, I would expect a 76 OVR to be a high 80s-type of player by their second year if you want Madden to capture those instances. Maybe the guys with superstar development do that? More testing needs to be done by all of us once the game actually comes out (I ran out of EA Access time).

[n7leadfarmer]

My worry with this is defensive player development. It was incredibly difficult (in comparison) to improve defenders that weren't defensive ends, so I would hope that they slowed the offensive progression but left the defensive alone, or have more realistic goals for user players to hit. Last year but 79ovr starting free safety had only 1 weekly goal, all year. Pick six. The fs just isn't going to get many pick six's and then you're basically saying that your fs has no chance to improve based on his performance. I found that very frustrating

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[jhigginsluckow]

In my opinion, the problem has never been that you can make a rookie or low rated player into a 90+ overall in one year. Chris Johnson made a huge leap after running for 2000 yards his second year. Sheldon Richardson and JJ Watt were both 90+ by the end of their second years. If Johnny Manziel came out this year in real life and threw for 5000 yards, 40 touchdowns, 10 picks, and ran for another 800 yards and 4 touchdowns (which were attainable numbers last year on Madden, easily), he would get a massive bump in Madden. Probably 94+ overall. So that aspect I think is fine.

The problems - again, my opinion only - are two things:

1 - Players who have below average seasons don't regress while they're young. This allowed Madden players to focus on one player for a year, build him up, and then move on to the next guy. This is how super teams are created. Using Madden 15 as an example, I could take Donte Moncrief in year one, spend all season forcing balls to him, get him 150 catches, 2500 yards, 25 Touchdowns (breaking all the records), and he'd be a 90+ Overall by the end of it. Then, I could draft a new receiver, force HIM all the balls and stats, and turn him into a 90+ Overall. Moncrief may have only gotten 20 catches all year while I focused on the new rookie, but because he is so young, his traits don't get recalibrated much, if any. Single-season splurges in OVR aren't the problem. The problem is it needs to work both ways. Ray Rice was a 90+ OVR one year. Then he came out and ran for 3 yards a carry and boom - his OVR got depleted.

2 - Kind of flows with #1, but the other problem is Madden somehow needs to recalibrate things at the end of each year. Aaron Rodgers has thrown for great statistical numbers every year, yet he's never had 99 Throw Power, Short Accuracy, Mid Accuracy, and Deep Accuracy all at once. However, if you were to put up Rodgers' numbers year after year in Madden, it allows you to build to those attribute numbers. This problem does fit hand in hand with #1 - ratings need to be more heavily tied to recent year's production.